Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian was the first debut novel in US publishing history to land at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week on sale; it has sold more than three million copies and been translated into 40 languages. Her new novel, The Shadow Land, follows a young American woman who travels to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping to heal from the loss of her brother. Shortly after arriving, she discovers an urn filled with human ashes and sets out to find its owner, an endeavor that leads to uncovering the secrets of a talented musician who was shattered by oppression, and evolves into a meditation on the painful history of an entire country. Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Russo hails the novel as “thrilling.”

Theater, television, and film actor Ashley Wood kicks off the evening with a piece by Colum McCann, “What Baseball Does to the Soul.” Jeffrey Schmidt, Artistic Director of Theater Three in Dallas, will read “Stranger on the Bridge” by Julia Heaberlin and “Ash” by Thomas Adams. Audience favorite G. W. Bailey, perhaps best known for his roles as Sergeant Rizzo in M*A*S*H, Lieutenant Harris in The Police Academy films, and, most recently, Detective Provenza on TNT’s Major Crimes, will read “West of Nowhere” by Harry Hunsicker.

The Homeschool Class for Families is for children ages 6-12 and requires advance registration. Click on the event for additional information.

It's big, it's colorful . . . it's glass! Join us in March to learn all about glassblowing and the DMA Hart Window​ by glass artist Dale Chihuly, and then work on a Chihuly-inspired project in the studio.

Katherine Brodbeck, the DMA’s Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, will be joined in conversation by Whitney curator Scott Rothkopf and MOCA Los Angeles curator Bennett Simpson to discuss Laura Owens’ 20-year career and this comprehensive new exhibition of her work.

William Middleton’sDouble Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de Menil is the first biography about the influential couple known as “The Medici of Modern Art.” The Menils cre­ated an oasis of culture in their Philip Johnson–designed house, hosting everyone from Marlene Dietrich and Renée Magritte to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. In Houston they built the Menil Collection, the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, and the Cy Twombly Gallery, and provided underwriting for the Contemporary Arts Museum. With unprecedented access to private family archives and personal interviews, Middleton has crafted a vivid behind-the-scenes look at the famous couple who shaped Texas culture and the 20th-century art world through civil rights support, art patronage, and public gallery innovations.

Art historian Suzanne Blier will speak about her new book Picasso's Demoiselles: Africa, Sex, Origins, and Creativity, which examines the composition, dating, and subject matter of Picasso's well-known painting based on clues from newly discovered sources.

Bestselling cookbook author, Emmy Award–winning television personality, and successful restaurateur Lidia Bastianich discusses her heartwarming memoir My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food. Raised in Pula, a formerly Italian city turned Yugoslavian under Tito’s Communist regime, her family is ultimately forced to flee to Trieste, Italy, where they spend two years in a refugee camp before moving to the United States—a hugely formative experience in Lidia’s life. Told with her hallmark warmth and gusto, this memoir details her close-knit family and her passion for food, which ultimately leads to multiple restaurants, many cookbooks, and 20 years on public television as the host of her own cooking show, Lidia’s Kitchen.

This event will pair two powerful authors exploring the border both in fact and fiction. In The Line Becomes a River, Francisco Cantú, a former US Border Patrol guard, makes urgent and personal the violence our border wreaks on both sides of the line. Cantú is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and 2017 Whiting Award, and is a former Fulbright fellow. Luis Alberto Urrea’s novel The House of Broken Angels is the definitive Mexican-American immigrant story of a beloved and ailing patriarch, Miguel Angel De La Cruz, who summons his entire clan for one last birthday party. Teeming with brilliance and humor, Urrea’s indelible portrait of a complex family reminds us what it means to be the first generation and to live two lives across one border.

Danielle Allen was award­ed a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship for her ability to combine “the classicist’s careful attention to texts and language with the political theorist’s sophisticated and informed engagement.” Featured on the front page of the New York Times, Allen’s Our Declaration reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text, combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration line by line with a vivid evocation of the colonial world. Bestselling author Andrew Solomon praises Allen’s 2017 memoir, Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A., saying, “In this narrative of freedom and incarceration, education and disadvantage, rehabilitation and punishment, Danielle Allen paints an unforgettable portrait of a cousin she loved. The pacing is brisk and novelistic, but the message is large and clear: we need urgently to reform the system through which we process juveniles who commit crime, because the cur­rent system perpetuates the very injustices it was designed to address.”

The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.